incognito

the caterpillar
is nature’s spy:
incognito
butterfly.

mutt

a broken heart has room

for waifs and strays

where every mangy mutt 

will finally have its day

in all of us resides

a vulnerable part

we are all the same

in our broken heart 

comestible

a patchwork quilt
of comestible delight
turkey on your left
mashed potato on your right

fawn

as a pup
licking lotion
off a bared leg
hopes the bearer
will fumble and
let fall a fry

so I fawn over you
five second rule the crumbs of your affection
unwilling to let the minutest selection go to waste
I savor every morsel's taste

retinue

some are born
for the crown
the adulation of strangers
never gets them down

in them always sings
the divine right of kings

but that isn't me
and that isn't you
we were born
for the retinue

sempiternal

never did I think
a simple day
could create
such an ache
that one touch
could ease
sempiternal truth
that the heart
is not one organ
but it inexorably
ties to all
to skin and
every sense
endlessly

billingsgate

he loved her wild ways
the glorious contradiction
of her refined form
and swaggering gait
the arms swinging
in a broad arc as
from her delicate mouth
pours forth billingsgate
that would make
a dockworker blush
the textures of her
silk and burlap soul
set his linen heart aflame

jilt

never have you seen
such an affronted face

you’d think
she was a lover
being jilted
for another
when you grab
your keys
but no leash

heterodox

It turns out 
for years 
I confused anxiety 
with butterflies.

All the ones
I thought
gave me flutters
gave me ulcers.

Movies taught me 
love was fraught.

But this 
heterodox delight,
this soft kiss and sigh
alighting on upturned lips,
I feel not in my stomach
but in my chest and hips
as I lean against 
your sturdy form and
make a pillow of your arm.

fortitude

there are days
when I should
have listened to
my intuition
to stay curled up
head upon a cushion
squeezed into a little ball
cat curled too in the crook
of my bended knees
warm and comfy
as you please
and yet I summoned
all my fortitude
and rise to fall
and wonder why
I rose at all
tomorrow is
another day
and maybe it will
go another way

expedite

I know I have not
savored enough
the good too oft
expedited with
the bad as I rush
to get to the next bit
where of course
joy alone must reign
better to accept them both
for what they are
the now is all we
are granted for certain

recondite

deep below an ocean
made of all the tears
shed and ever to be shed
an eyeless fish sinuous
swims the sandy bottom
of our psyche in solitary
esses searching for
recondite treasures
to feed a piscine heart
with hope

mot juste

i see you
in your grief
the aching
open wound
that rends you
in two
and would offer
some relief
were there any
to be found
but in my search
for le mot juste
all the words
for woe fall flat
and so i mutter
"this fucking blows"
and though it's pat
it'll do
at least not trite
and sadly true

carouse

in my youth
I would imbibe
with the best of them
I could indeed
carouse just
like the rest of them
but my vintage now
well aged I sip instead
to warm my heart
but save my head

officious

the reward for a quiet attempt
by a quick mind to forestall
waste is to be deemed
pedantic and officious
by those who care
to claim that they
have listened
but who rather than learn
yearn to be seen
doing a thing rather than
doing the thing that’s seen

white elephant

cautious care and kindness
becoming a white elephant
hung about ones neck
to choke when disregard
the gift given in return
and guilt the gilt returned
on investment unearned

incongruous

like laughter at a funeral
the incongruous spark
spontaneous most beautiful
founded in sentiment
of joy or hope or kindness
it startles us to remind us
of the wonder that wakes
the divinity of creativity

gambit

i have no mind for strategy
other's motivations leave me
befuddled beyond belief
my opening gambit
also my mate checked
expecting kindness
and respect from those
who seek a different end
so a smaller game instead
this little corner of
the board with you
against the world defend

bruit

the cubicles stand in
not for offices
but lockers
and the insidious stank
of high school repression
of mean girl succession
of jocks jostling for position
and me in the corner
no more grunge but still sulking
as gossip bruited about
the break room worse
than any cafeteria
I end my days weary
and yet wearier

armistice

sent across a sea
to defend
against the tyranny
of ancient men
who make decisions
and divisions
look across the lines
to find
in other eyes
more in kind
than them
what sent them there
see the same
ache and despair
and kindness and hope
a Christmas armistice
tied with twine and rope
wrapped with a bow
for a song or two
in sweet tableau
before the brass
turns the screw
before the gas
begins again
before the guns
are manned
before the bullets
start to rain
once more
in no man's land

teleological

having none
I cannot be sure
but I do not think
it merely hypothetical
that a baby’s cuteness
is partly teleological
else how
a want wider than ocean
the abyss of need
the constant burp
and change and feed
sparks such deep devotion
but that they do
is indisputable
and it is beautiful

aphorism

simple truth
lost in time
so many words
bandied about
from everywhere
our minds
bombarded by
constant conversation
we’ve forgot
the aphorism
of brevity and wit
in every
long winded bit

lyric

thread invisible
quilts together
the hemispheres
in grand design
the lyric heart
and prosaic mind

espouse

I am gone already
my soul has flown
in the click
of the mouse
imagination
has peopled
a house on a hill
and there would I
espouse the proposition
that a smaller life
can be fuller that I
city bred can transition
to a quiet mind and
in the tap tap tap
upon a keyboard
build a world greater
that the metropolis
I left and were you
there too my cleft heart
made whole again
my universe
shrunk\expanded

chillblain

take for granted
winters worst
wrapped in wool
warmed with little packs
of chemicals pretending that
the colds are not colder
than the winter before
we stave off the chillblains
the our children will endure
as we ignore more and more

posthaste

the summer sun departs
flees for warmer climes
and in the spin of days
autumn starts to wind
down to winter’s ways
the calendar then charts
when spring finally appears
posthaste grow the flowers
bedecked about with dew
and these are all the seasons
I long to spend with you

sobriquet

our spans all limited
our limitations
all too clear
and we can never hear
the words said about us
once we are gone
the sobriquet short or long
we cannot know posterity
all we can do is attempt
and in attempting hope
that we are remembered
as we wish to be
and so I say
live today
as though tomorrow
were the day
that makes them say
what they will say

fraught

bliss inconsolable
tears of joy water
the ground
grown fallow
from tiresome tears
and there arose
a rose of gold
fraught with all
the world has wrought
perfumed perfection

dilapidated

take this dilapidated heart
but do not despair
it is a fixer upper
but not beyond repair

apocryphal

history, they say,
is written
by the winners
winner-winners
full of chicken dinners
but I say
history is bought
by the buyers and
repackaged and
resold by their liars
who would build
collective memory
out of the apocryphal
conspiracy so bountiful
truths pulled like taffy
from not to maybe
stretched so thin
as to be invisible
and thus we the indivisible
become the unadvisable
when the spurious so risible
and yet so easily believed
deceivers always find
the easy to deceive